PS260 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Mental Rotation, Ambiguous Image, Necker Cube
Document Summary
A variety of day-to-day problems seem to require the use of visual imagery. Francis galton (1883) used the method of introspection to study mental imagery. His participants" self reports suggested that they could inspect their images in much the same way as a picture. The participants also differed widely in the amount of detail their mental images seemed to contain. (or were these differences in self-reporting style?) Studies of visual imagery in the last fifty years have avoided introspection and instead ask participants to do something with their images to read information off them or manipulate them in some way. Chronometric studies measure the amount of time required by a cognitive process of interest. Kosslyn (1976) asked participants to answer yes/no questions about their mental images. If participants imagined a cat, they were faster to confirm that cats have heads, compared to confirming that cats have claws. The fact that cats have claws is something that differs cats from other.
